Diary IV

Dear Diary: My Personal Chronicles IV -
“Let’s stop for a moment now and share some painful stories shall we? Or should I go back to the time when u laid down the rules on how I should be a good little boyfriend; and u wound up leaving me anyway?”
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It was a day like any other, uneventful and untouched. His call came through, like always; or so I thought. I said my usual casual hello and he spoke up. “She and I are no longer together any more.” I felt a huge lump in my mouth and I didn’t know what to say, except that something seemed so wrong all of a sudden. His throat suddenly seemed to run dry but he continued with the same quantum of indifference that his voice seemed to betray the first time he said those words “Its just not working out; we have decided to move on”. I had absolutely no words to justify the moment.

My mind suddenly did summersaults and raced back to the winter of 2002. It had been a helluva period in our already turbulent lives. The triumvirate had just come out of a huge practical project, one that had nearly sucked the blood out of the premise of our very existence whilst at the same time ensuring that we put in our best shot there over a period of 2 huge months. What had originally begun as a professional endeavor was finally culminating into something personal… more personal than I would have ever envisaged.

Amidst all the project work, I indulged into some heavy ragging which drove her wild and crazy; but neither she nor he showed any signs of budging from their original stand. And I thought I was the master at this game.

Days turned into weeks and weeks into months. The project was almost at an end. Nothing seemed to have come of it; minus the professional agenda of course. I had almost but given up on anything happening there - the teasing had led nowhere. Or so I thought.

As we descended the stairs a few weeks later, on our way back home, those words popped out of his mouth which stayed etched in memory! “I and she have fallen for each other!” and I was like what the... As it slowly dawned upon me, I realized that the seed of my actions had finally borne fruit and resulted into an amazing association one that transcended beyond and across all boundaries and realms of my imagination.

I did not follow up on their association for years to come because I knew they would be solid. Nothing and nobody would break them apart, atleast that’s what I liked to believe. Not until that fateful call, 4 ½ years later.

I cut the line, but his words simmered at the back of my mind for a pretty long time. This could not be happening, definitely not in my book. They were always meant to be together, he had said so himself. I covered my face with the palm of my hands. Words had defeated me again and my mouth had run completely dry.

Days passed and we happened to go out a few times. But the casual indifference surrounding his entire presence continued to defy me as I failed to meet his eye. I had to find out what was going on. It was almost a month later when I finally managed to accost him with the doubts that had been running through my mind for so long.

“What happened?” I asked. For a long time he looked away; and then finally he spoke, with what seemed like a knot in his throat, something that turned into tears at the drop of a hat. Pain and betrayal was writ large on his face as he looked up and said, “I couldn’t fight it out any more. It was just not worth it.” What followed for a few minutes later was a reflection of the humongous pain that he had suppressed within himself over the travesty that he had allowed himself to be subjected to, and that too for no fault of his.

As I walked down the stairs, a huge sense of loss descended over me. I felt as if a part of me had been taken out of me with utter disdain and contempt. Theirs was a model relationship one that I had looked up to for almost half a decade, and now it had died a premature death, one that totally defied the realms of my comprehension.